Small boats and rafts have commonly used inflatable elements for buoyancy and for other purposes. Rafts using inflatable elements may include no rigid structure and rely on the inflatable elements to form a desired hull shape. Other boats include both a rigid hull and an inflatable collar commonly positioned around the top of the front and sides of the rigid hull portion. Boats including both a rigid hull portion and an inflatable collar are commonly referred to as rigid inflatable boats (also commonly abbreviated to “RIB boats”).
Prior RIB boats utilize an inflatable collar in which the collar material is required to both contain the gas pressure for inflation, and to provide a tough and durable exterior. A problem with current RIB boat collars is that specialized materials and assembly techniques are required to produce collars that are capable of retaining gas pressure and providing the desired durable exterior surface. Another problem with current RIB boat collars is that a single puncture to the collar material will allow the entire collar to deflate unless air-tight dividers are used within the collar to form separate pressure cells along the length of the collar. Although such dividers do solve the problem of having the entire collar deflate in response to a single puncture, the dividers are difficult to form.